After Chris returned, he met his friend and last anchor, smashed by rubble.

He reached for his staff. It didn’t respond to the summons.

He flicked his fingers. There was still no response.

"What’s happening?" he shrieked.

"What’s happening?" he repeated.

He was shouting. Screaming at the top of his voice.

"Ahh!" he repeated.

"What’s happening?"

Bashing his hand on the floor.

Two times.

Then three.

Then four.

"What’s happening?"

He continued shouting.

Two times.

Three times.

He continued crying for about an hour.

His hands were now sore. His throat as well.

This was pretty much how the others had gone too.

He reflected. It wasn’t monsters who ended his team. It was the earthquake. So sporadic and random.

Those very same quakes had taken the last anchor to his old life. They’d been trapped for a couple of days, having eaten no food. They were originally surprised they even lasted that long.

They just assumed the weird atmosphere was affecting their metabolism somehow.

Chris lost consciousness.

He faded out.

Hours later he woke up, very sluggish and with little energy.

Not long after waking, though, he fainted again.

After hours, he awoke again.

This was the constant cycle he was in.

His body was somehow sustaining itself this way.

The next time he woke up, he decided not to sleep.

He fought it, and he fought well because he was successful.

He dragged himself to lean on one of the cave walls.

He knew he couldn’t stand. He had little energy to do so.

He just needed to sit and think.

He did just that.

Chris couldn’t quite understand why he couldn’t summon his staff.

He was always useless among the others, but never this useless.

He’d always been capable of doing something as simple as commanding the staff.

Something was wrong.

He just didn’t know.

The reason why he was always useless was because of his talent. You have to remember talents only work well depending on the rank you awaken to.

He had a good talent, just that his rank couldn’t keep up.

Chris awakened to the Space talent, but as a C-rank. He was effectively useless, as his mana pool could barely summon the most basic of portals.

Whenever he would even do so, he’d always feel drained and out of it.

"This isn’t the time to wimp around," he said.

"My friend needs me."

He was now hard coping.

He was setting himself up to fail. He knew this, but he didn’t choose to consider it. Rather, he chose to simply ignore this.

He wasn’t in the right place mentally.

"Space talent," he chanted, and he summoned a simple portal.

This was an attempt.

It worked, better than even expected.

A portal appeared beside him, and Quentin’s body slipped through it.

Just then, the rubble on the other side previously scattered around his friend’s body all scattered. They no longer had Quentin’s body to use as their support.

Christopher dragged himself to Quentin.

He noticed he was breathing.

"He’s still breathing. But how? He has a pulse and everything."

Christopher was relieved.

He knew it would only be a matter of time before Quentin would wake up, and then he wouldn’t be without a friend or companion.

He didn’t want to die in this unknown land on his own.

He began spacing out not long after, his consciousness fading.

He fainted again.

By the time he got up, Quentin was already up as well.

Christopher noticed he felt revitalized and asked if Quentin used some kind of flame recovery spell.

"Who’s Quentin?" Quentin asked.

He had no memory of this Quentin fellow.

Christopher continued to detail the story to Roe.

"You see, what happened wasn’t that Quentin miraculously survived. No. I somehow used a spirit talent thanks to the Faith power to place a consciousness within him," Chris continued narrating.

’It was probably a soul talent,’ Roe thought.

He didn’t want to correct him, however, as that would be inappropriate considering the topic.

"I thought he was suffering from memory loss. We somehow climbed out of the cave-in. I found the others, also breathing. At the time I thought they were alive. I don’t think so anymore."

"It was some kind of twisted reanimation spell I somehow put into effect."

"I’ve never been a particularly studious guy, but I momentarily became one after we made it out using a space spell."

"When I came out, I realized I somehow had access to every talent around. I realized there were rumors that the God-tier System wielder would soon present himself."

"It was all everyone was talking about, really."

"I also heard of you. I believe the day you had just awakened. I heard talks of the mage who could rival Merlin," Chris ended with a heavy heart.

Roe was less tense.

’That’s not a sin,’ he thought.

’That’s no crime. He just feels bad for the death of his friends and a possible defilement of their late bodies. Not too bad.’

"Hey."

Roe reached out his hand.

"None of that matters. You want to save humanity, right?"

"Then do it with me."

Just as Chris raised his hand to respond, an explosion was heard.

Someone had made it in.

Very violently at that.

Another explosion was heard from the opposite side.

They initially didn’t know what were the causes.

A figure walked through the smoke on the left and two others from the right.

The left was Lot and the right was Perzeus and Andrew.

Just then another explosion was heard and seen.

This one was unexpected.

Roe had just sighed being relieved it was just Lot and others.

"Who could this third person be’? He thought .

Ha ha.

A smile was heard.

A loud one at that.

The others were also all tensed but Perzeus was the first to go calm.

He knew the laugh.

"Don’t tell you you guys are just making it here . Big shame."

"You call yourselves mages."

The last person was Arthur. He had also just arrived